He Sat Me by the Warming Racks, So I Pulled the Funding novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: The Mediation Table
The mediator's office was on the ninth floor of a downtown building, and the conference table had a bowl of green mints on it.
I sat on one side with my lawyer, a square, calm woman who had never once raised her voice at me.
Curtis sat on the other side with his lawyer and a legal pad he was not writing on.
He had lost weight in three weeks, and his collar stood away from his neck.
He did not look at me.
"Let's begin with the principal items," the mediator said. "Ms. Tolbert, you've put your position in writing."
"I have," I said.
My lawyer slid a one-page sheet across the table.
"Three hundred and forty thousand dollars for the cost of Dr. Ainsley's medical school," I said. "With interest at the rate the bank would have charged him."
"It was a marital expense," Curtis's lawyer said at once. "A gift between spouses."
"It was a loan from a woman to a man who wasn't her husband yet," my lawyer said. "I have the checks. Every one of them is made out to the university in her name."
Curtis's lawyer turned a page.
"The Water Street firm is marital property," he said. "We'll want half. And given Dr. Ainsley's current circumstances, we'll be asking for spousal support."
"No," I said.
"Mrs. Tolbert..."
"No to the firm, and no to support. I started it in my mother's laundry room, and Curtis never once came to work there."
"I brought you coffee," Curtis said.
It was the first thing he had said, and his voice cracked.
"You brought me coffee in the first year," I said. "I remember it was good."
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